Lori's Recharge
by Exotos135
Summary: Lori tries to recharge her phone after her remaining messages expire.


At Lori and Leni's bedroom, Lori was walking back and forth as she spoke to her boyfriend, Bobby, on her phone. You know, nothing unusual.

"So, I was literally at the mall with Leni, when she suddenly yanked me straight into a perfume store. So I decided to humor her and tried out a couple perfumes, and then I saw the worst thing ever, strawberry perfume! Not that there's anything wrong with strawberries, I'll at least admit that strawberries taste very good, but have a perfume after them? Really? And worst of all, Leni made me test a sample right up my nostrils!"

And just as it seemed Lori had finished, she continued to talk:

"Next, after attacking my nose with scents, we went to a movie. All I remember about it is that Leni enjoys the weirdest kind of movies: it was basically about a sausage trying to kill all humans so food could become the dominant species. And let me tell you, it felt really weird watching such a movie while eating popcorn, drinking sodas, and stuff like-"

Mercifully, Bobby seemingly hung up just as Lori continued her onslaught of sentences. One closer look later, however, Lori got a message saying:

"Your messages have expired."

So, completely confused about the deal, she went downstairs and approached her parents. "Mom! Dad! I need to tell you something-"

"Darling, we already established that the chances of a satellite falling on top of the house are very low," Lynn Sr. said in exasperation. "And even if that happened, you'd only be in charge if we were away."

"Yeah, you made that painfully clear last time, but that's not why I'm here," Lori replied, rubbing her head before explaining, "You see, I was talking with Bobby about our recent date, you know nothing out of the ordinary, and then my the call literally hanged out of nowhere! And then I got a message saying something about how I ran out of messages or something. What would that even mean?"

"That means you used up all your available messages," Rita explained. "Did you really think you could just message Bobby forever?"

"Well, yeah, I was hoping I could do that," Lori sheepishly answered, rubbing the back of her head. "Do you know how I can get my messages back?"

"Lori, you have to pay the local phone service in order to get your messages back," Lynn Sr. explained. "And for that, you need a specific amount of money for how much you'll recharge."

"So I have to go a long time without talking to Bobby until I can recharge my phone?!" Lori whined.

"Precisely," Mr. and Mrs. Loud answered in unison.

With that said and done, Lori went back to her and Leni's bedroom and walked back and forth as she tried to think what to do. "Okay, let's see, I need to get some money to get some more messages, that's what mom and dad say I need to do," Lori remarked as Leni entered the room. "But how am I supposed to make enough money?"

"Why don't you just work overtime?" Leni suggested.

One quick shock later, Lori responded, "No, overtimes remind me of when Lincoln abused my job to please that Chandler jerk. There has to be another way I can make a lot of cash."

"Well, why don't you focus on finding a cheap phone place where you can do what you need to do?" Leni said, raising an eyebrow.

Lori was completely caught off-guard by the suggestion.

 _A little while later..._

The phone-holic teenager walked around the streets, looking for the phone recharge centers of Royal Woods. However, no matter where she looked, there were no recharge centers available. Or any centers, for that matter.

"You know, seeing how everybody has a phone nowadays, you'd expect to literally be at least one place around where they can recharge," Lori complained. "But I can't give up just yet! I have to find one of those places to find out how much money I need!"

Almost as if on cue, Lori managed to find a center and went inside. She didn't waste time either, she quickly went to the lady at the counter and said as she showed her phone, "Good morning, lady. Listen, my phone suddenly cut off while I was talking with my boyfriend, and I would like to know how much I need to spend to recharge so I can talk with him again. Forever."

"How much would you like to pay?" inquired the woman.

Lori blinked twice before answering, "Which is the minimum and the maximum limit on what I can spend?"

"50 dollars is the minimum, 150 dollars is the maximum limit," the woman nonchalantly, almost casually, answered.

Lori blinked twice once more, though this time her smile turned into a frown. "A-Are you serious?" the girl questioned in worry. "I don't have enough money for the maximum limit, I don't even have enough for the minimum limit!"

"Don't worry, miss, you can always return when you have enough money to pay," the woman at the counter explained. "Until then, I suggest that you refrain from interrupting the other people who desire to recharge."

Lori tilted her head. "What other people?"

The woman pointed behind the girl, and she saw a large line of people behind her, looking just as desperate as her to recharge their phones. So she left the center and put her hands on her pockets as she walked back home.

"How am I supposed to get enough money to recharge my phone?" Lori somberly thought, right before remembering something: "Wait, I don't need to get the money, I can just borrow it!"

And with that in mind, the girl went back home as fast as she could and reunited with her parents. "Hello, mom and dad!" Lori cheerfully greeted, trying to get on her parents' good side. "How are you doing?"

The adults, however, didn't fall for it. "What do you want, Lori?" Rita asked, crossing her arms.

"Well, I checked at the phone recharge center, and they told me 50 and 150 dollars were the minimum and maximum needed to get more phone messages-" Lori explained.

"50 and 150 dollars?!" Lynn Sr. shouted. "Back when I was younger, we only needed 20 and 40 dollars!"

"Dad, back when you were younger, disco was still a thing," Lori stated. "Anyway, since I don't have enough money to pay for it, I figured-"

"We're not going to let you borrow some of our money to recharge your phone, Lori," Rita stated. "We need the money to buy important things like groceries, school-related objects, and stuff like that."

The teenager, knowing this would get her nowhere, went back to her room and walked back and forth as she devised a plan: "Okay, so all I need to do is work as the waitress at that Game and Grub place until I have enough money to recharge my phone, it shouldn't be that big of a deal! And this time, I'll make sure Lincoln doesn't force me to work overtime!"

So, with her goal set, Lori clasped her hands with a devious smile. "It's a foolproof plan!"

 _One Week Later..._

It was sunday, the calm before the storm that's known as monday, and Lori hit her bed as she finished her last day of work. At least for this week. "Okay, let's see how much money I got," she said before counting the money in her wallet. "10, 20, 30, 40..."

Then she sprung up and excitedly shouted "50!" before promptly sulking on her bed. "That's barely enough to cover the minimum limit!" she whined. "At this rate, It's going to take me forever to recharge my phone! What will Bobby think when I stop calling him?!"

"Why don't you ask him yourself?"

The teenager flinched and turned around to see Leni standing by the door. "Have you been hanging out with Lucy, or something?!" Lori hissed.

"No, but I've been scared by her for so long, I learned how to imitate her," Leni answered. "Anyway, as I was saying, how about you ask Bobby how he would feel without you calling him for a while? I called him to come over here, and he, like, just arrived!"

"You invited Bobby without asking for my opinion first?!" Lori growled, grabbing and pulling Leni by her dress.

"I figured you would just say no, so I, like, didn't even bother!" Leni answered with a sheepish smile. "Now go downstairs and speak to him, please."

Knowing beating up her sister wouldn't do any good, Lori released Leni and went downstairs, where she saw Bobby sitting at the couch. So she sat next to him and caught his attention.

"Oh hi babe," Bobby remarked. "How are you doing?"

"Well, I have bad news, Bobby," Lori answered. "My phone... it ran out of messages a week ago, and I don't have enough money to recharge it right now. So, we won't be able to talk on the phone for a while."

"It's okay, babe," Bobby replied, grabbing Lori's hand and interlocking fingers with her, "At least we got other ways of communicating, right?"

"R-Right," the teenager stuttered as her cheeks turned red.

So, realizing they could interact with each other without phones, Lori and Bobby leaned closer... and then rubber noses together. What, did you think they were gonna kiss or something? That's only what lovers do! Wait...

 _"So this is how it feels to speak with Bobby in person, and not on thep hone? Wow, I've been missing out. I guess it wouldn't hurt to do this more often..."_


End file.
